Knife balance discussion

[GrayScare0]

The limit prevents spamming easy kills, but that's still 3-4 free kills if all traitors get one. That's plenty to kill every detective, making the DNA ineffective as a balancing tool. If a traitor knifes and doesn't pick up the scanner, he is not very good. All he has to do is hold E right after knifing.

The fact that it even needed all these limits and downsides just to keep it from being excessively good and completely overused doesn't exactly speak for the knife. And of course, it was still a guaranteed buy for many traitors even with those downsides.

If this change turns the knife into a situational thing, only used against wounded players for example, then that's great. Means there is balancing room to power up other equipment that is more fun for everyone involved

To be honest, I think simply making body armor have some degree of knife resistance would achieve the goal with less change, as taking out a detective to obtain the DNA scanner would be more difficult.  Regardless, I'm interested in seeing how this plays out.

[C.Mong]

After thinking about it a bit today, I really, really like this change to the knife.
Nothing is more frustrating than casually strolling to get a weapon when the round starts only to be instantly knifed by someone who knows how to play and knows who to take out first.

[Tigermisu]

:'( RIP Knife.

Good thing I am getting used to alternative traitor tactics, this won't hurt me as much now.

[ThePaSch]

Perhaps something to help drill down to what could be changed: even if the knife no longer caused unavoidable deaths, deagle/rifle headshots still would. Walk up to someone and blam, versus walk up to someone and stab. What makes the first kind less bad than the stabs?

The noise? Then perhaps there should be a death scream for the knife. Any other factors?

What about that? Why did you HAVE to nerf the knife to that extent?
Simply add a loud, distinguishable death scream, and bam, no need to nerf the knife anymore.

Edit: At least make the knife changes optional (serverside, of course), kind of like you did with the strict karma system.

[Bad King Urgrain]

The problem with a death noise is that it removes the stealth part of the knife, while leaving the no-skill instant 100% reliable kill part that is a much bigger problem.

The strict karma thing only alters a single formula. Keeping what is effectively a whole separate weapon is not feasible. Servers can still put the old knife in as a custom weapon, though of course it will be their responsibility to update it if it breaks.

[Kologer0s]

Just so I know to change it back, you only altered the ttt_knife_proj and not ttt_knife right?
People are finding it really really gay, was balanced already.

[Bad King Urgrain]

No, both were modified.

People will find it "gay" because they will complain about any change that messes with something they know and like, even if the change improves the game overall. I expect a lot of angry posts when the new version rolls out.

[Braegh]

Some questions about the reworked knife:

1) If you kill someone with the knife, is it used up?
2) Does karma affect the <60 HP instant kill?
3) Is the thrown knife going to be increased in range? I've always found the range rather short and might as well just have walked up to my victims.

Overall, reworking the knife IMO is a good thing - all too many times I've seen teammates instantly buy a knife, kill someone with it and get picked off one by one by the detective.

Also, is there going to be an additional keybind for slot 8, the same way "V" was used for slot 7 weapons?

[Bad King Urgrain]

I moved your post over here from the main thread.

1) Has been answered a few posts up. It will not be used up. Your knife stays until you kill someone with it (or drop it of course).

2) Karma does not affect knife damage, not for the kill and not for other stabs.

3) Not currently. You can quite easily make it go further if you aim up a bit. Changes to the throw are something I'm thinking about. Long-ish range throws should be rewarded (ie. instant kill if you are far enough away), and more feasible (ie. some sort of charge up of throwing force perhaps).

I'm not planning a default keybind for slot 8, because it mostly contains weapons that are not as "MUST USE NOW", and I don't have infinite gmod keybindings to reuse. It's quite easy to manually bind though: "ttt_quickslot 8"
Although that doesn't get you the automatic switch back to your previous gun if you're already on slot 8. I suppose I could make ttt_quickslot do that by default. (edit: It will now do so.)

[Rectal Exambot]

I would maybe like a 'charge up' throw, you can kill from point blank range, but you need to charge for a few seconds, meaning you have to have it out and be vulnerable. Similar to the way you did the Newton Lawnchair. Maybe a charge stab?

[Charles445]

1) Has been answered a few posts up. It will not be used up. Your knife stays until you kill someone with it (or drop it of course).

[me=Charles]did not know this and is now significantly happier[/me]

[camstatic]

I'd just like to suggest an alternative method of nerfing the knife, (I'm a server operator and I've been getting a bucketload of complaints about it since I installed the latest revision - since reverted) perhaps leave its combat effectiveness the same as it was before, but put a 1 minute lockout after the round starts on it? Will prevent the insta-knifing; allowing everyone to prepare, and the knife addicts keep their favourite weapon... Just an idea. :)

[yumi_cheeseman]

I'd just like to suggest an alternative method of nerfing the knife, (I'm a server operator and I've been getting a bucketload of complaints about it since I installed the latest revision - since reverted) perhaps leave its combat effectiveness the same as it was before, but put a 1 minute lockout after the round starts on it? Will prevent the insta-knifing; allowing everyone to prepare, and the knife addicts keep their favourite weapon... Just an idea. :)

I agree with this, as a much better solution for stopping the cheap instaknifing (not that I don't instadeagle anyway). The knife isn't overpowered, specially since it often gets into innocent hands, and the current knife has no reason to get it (like I cannot really see myself ever choosing it over tonnes of other options, and when I did have it, I used my deagle instead anyway and held knife for entire round). Putting a delay on knife purchases means the innocents don't get instaknifed. I rarely get knifed as D because I stick to groups anyway.

Feedback from other players has been rather poor, and we've been finding that average players who aren't a good shot are now completely useless as Traitors, and thus innocents have been winning over and over and over again.

The delay on the knife is a fairly huge amount, and also takes way to long to resheath, I could really only see the knife useful as a quick stab in a crowd to make paranoia, but the huge delay there removes that use.

[Rectal Exambot]

Feedback from other players has been rather poor, and we've been finding that average players who aren't a good shot are now completely useless as Traitors, and thus innocents have been winning over and over and over again.

That is the players fault, not the game.

You could always add it as a custom weapon

[yumi_cheeseman]

It's fine to say that if you were allowed to choose your Traitor Teammates, but you can't, it doesn't seem like an issue of balance, but an issue of fun, yet the balance has been made whacked.

A GOOD traitor team is going to blitz through even without knives, but with a new player, they may as well be innocent.

The other idea, is knives are as usual, but knifing a detective does not give you a credit.

[Bad King Urgrain]

Have you considered that players perhaps aren't good at playing traitor because the knife was a crutch? Why become good at something when you can ignore most of its subtleties and just stab a dude.

Time-based unlocking doesn't work: traitors will simply wait out the preceding minutes until it unlocks, then play as they always have. Only effect: rounds last longer with nothing happening.

I'm far more interested in tuning other variables than in powering the knife up again. For example: giving traitors two credits at the start of the round instead of one, or powering up their other equipment.

[camstatic]

The thought of them waiting it out then springing into action did spring to mind but I assume we saw different problems with its deployment, thanks for taking the time to read our suggestions though. :)

[Bad King Urgrain]

Just giving this a bump so people see the thread.

Some things I've done to improve the traitor's situation so far:
- Start with 2 credits instead of 1
- Silenced Pistol sound range is quite a bit shorter, ie. it's harder to hear.

If there's another piece of equipment that is currently too weak to be useful because it has too little ammo, for example, or fires too slow, you can suggest it here.

[Datastream]

Honestly the knife as it was, was just fine. I don't get why people whined that it was OP. Because it was not. Now it is seriously underpowered. Everybody hates it as it is. Get it back to normal because... You know. Why buy a knife nowadays? You throw it, and when for some random chance it hits, you'll have to pick it up again to throw. What is the chance of you being able to pick it up to throw it again? I'll tell you. MINISCULE.

Get it back to normal. A game doesn't HAVE to change just to change it. Keep it the same.

[Bad King Urgrain]

Get it back to normal. A game doesn't HAVE to change just to change it. Keep it the same.

I'm not changing it just to change it, I'm changing it to rectify a core problem that had a negative impact that affected the entirety of the game. I'm not changing it back. That would mean adding a problem back in just because a group of players loves that problem. Not an option.

Either suggest areas in which balance could be improved, or don't post. It's a waste of your time to post "I hate the change, put it back" and the like.